The Avalanches

Before Since I Left You it was nearly all live instruments. SILY is 99% samples. New album is, as I understand it, built ground-up from samples, but then with the occasional written-and-played line, flourish or rhythm worked in.

Robbie couldn't do the shows due to health problems I believe.

Since I Left You was nearly all samples, http://web.archive.org/web/20120314023320/http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov02/articles/avalanches.asp this article goes pretty in depth about their methods (they had large banks of individual chords they'd sampled etc. as well as more prominent loops).

The impression I get is Wildflower has a bit more live instrumentation, there's more credits for that (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/musicnews/s4492761.htm though the claim Colours has no samples is a lie).

Remember how Tony was saying in interviews six months ago that they had an eight-track EP of leftovers from Wildflower that would get finished off and released in 2017?

Well, good news:

“In the few weeks since we’ve been home from the States, me and Tony have just been writing... It’s flowing so quickly. I think getting Wildflower out of the way and following up Since I Left You feels like a weight’s been lifted. The music is really light, it’s some of the best stuff we’ve done.”

Now that's been dropped, and they're playing eight new tracks to the label today, for an album that will come out next year.

Obviously this will definitely come out, and the reissue of Since I Left You isn't currently running seven years late.

Really looking forward to this. I thought 'Wildflower' was very underrated.

I'm going to see them tonight and I have heard uh very less-than-stellar things abt their current live show :-/ I'm p intrigued

Almost better to forget the debut when listening to the latest. Subways through folk star are a perfect run but the dayglo but the Beatles riffing on the cereal track leads me to believe they were going for a Disney style psychedelic
Record. For better or worse

Wow fucked that up. Take out “but the dayglo”

coming to think of Wildflower as a singularly great album. I can't really point to another album that feels so timeless....like the great Randy Savage said, "the past, the present, and the future, all at one time..." like, Biz Markie doing a Fat Boys style rap over a track based off a Jerry Lewis bit? that's brilliant, especially since the production pans all over the place and gives it a 3-dimensional feel. its like when they make modern films set in the 50's or 60's, but more colorful and vivid than anything that could *actually* have been released in those decades, it induces this weird cognitive dissonance that you don't get when say, some rock band just tries to emulate their betters from the 70's. Also: a lot of the music has a Sesame Street vibe to it, which I've never heard captured quite like this before. Now, where are those outtakes??

Something's up as they've changed their main social images, and curiously removed all of they Instagram content.

https://i.imgur.com/Fyua7e4.jpg

exciting! Here's their new profile image:
https://scontent-bos3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/86380969_10156527571187273_3683698062850523136_n.jpg

hrm
https://scontent-bos3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/86380969_10156527571187273_3683698062850523136_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_ohc=_okQWVvSobAAX_x8SyS&_nc_ht=scontent-bos3-1.xx&oh=42ad5e10ad7e589d788d919f9dc6397f&oe=5ECD0083

Ah yes, the inside of my skull.

The Wikipedia article on Wildflower is incredible:

During this era, they also devoted a large amount of time working on the score to King Kong, a 2013 theater production which took two years to produce. In the end, only a 25-second track by the group was used in the final production.

new song tonight ft. dev hynes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUhVBufwQQY

kinda nothingy, weird choice for a single but at least it's not "frankie sinatra"

Nice Roches sample!

oh wow, didn't think THAT would be the source of the title

i like this

Hammond Song! cool

Fucking amazing. And I’ve been jamming Wildflower a lot lately. That album gets better the more I listen to it. Shame it was a bit of a commercial dud. “Subway” or “If I Was a Folkstar” should’ve been the lead single instead of “Frankie Sinatra”

I like it a lot more than Since I Left You

I do too, it was way underrated

Frankie Sinatra ruins the flow of Wildflower a lot for me, take that off the album and now you have something, but Since I Left You is kinda up there at "album perfection" levels for me. They'll never top it because they'll always be hamstrung with the BS sampling limitations

New single is pretty, but understated. Look forward to hearing whatever they put out because even with the more limited palette and frequent use of guest vocalists (something I am not a fan of with them), there's a joie de vivre to their music that is truly magical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjQ3Gblzys

this one is kinda baffling, rivers does not work with the backing at all

Really? His performance was so sincere to my ears that I briefly forgot this was the guy most recently on the charts for covering “Africa” on a dare

Yikes, I hated this even more than I expected to.

rivers in this sort of mode is one of the least sincere-sounding singers there is

I have a new appreciation for Frankie Sinatra after watching that

It's better than I expected. A Rivers Cuomo feature (guest spots in general) is not what I need from Avalanches.

Aah, so this is clearly the one with the David Berman writing credit that was foretold elsewhere!

Have they actually sampled anything here though? Not sure I have much use for an Avalanches without a conspicuous plunderphonic element.

It's nice!

Stumbled on the answer to my own question re the principal sample.

California life is alright with me !

I've been hearing "We Will Always Love You" on the radio a lot. Every time I do I think "another great song... ruined by bozos who can't write their own".

the avalanches debut alongside the go! teams debut are up on tim burgess's listening party on saturday april 25th.
i totally get the pairing as both were sample heavy, feel good albums.
perfect for a saturday night.

SILY one starts in just over half hour

We're very happy to share with
you the cover for our new album, "We Will Always Love You".

Designed by our dear friend Jonathan Zawada, the sleeve features Ann Druyan, (Creative Director of the Voyager Golden Record Project) , who’s cosmic love story inspired this music.

— The Avalanches (@TheAvalanches) September 9, 2020

i don't even remember their follow up at all

Not a fan of the concept and definitely not a fan of the aesthetic.

I haven't heard any of the new songs yet but that cover art has me curious. like there's no way I'd hit play on that thing and hear something like Frankie Sinatra, right?

gee, tough crowd.
running red lights is excellent, and wildflower exceeded expectations set by frankie sinatra / colors / subways (which i also love).

SILY was lovingly looking at a postcard from a trip.
wildflower was lovingly looking at a bunch of hazy summer photos from your childhood, BoC without creepiness.
i’m afraid this album will be lovingly looking at a photograph of somebody who’s gone, and i hope i’m wrong.

I remember when I first heard SILY, I was so bowled over by the sheer quantity of awesome samples/hooks/breakbeats... just being relentlessly slammed with killer cut after killer cut, good times. Minus frontier psychiatrist, fuck that shit

I’m not speaking about the music, just the album cover which looks unpleasant to me. I lliked the previous album covers a lot, it seems like they’re not interested in having a visual aesthetic of their own, and that’s fine, but this one is a downgrade for me. I guess the spectograph thing is cool if a bit of an outdated novelty but I find it ugly as the main album cover. Maybe the back-cover or a single release idk.

I didn’t care much for Red Lights but I like it miles better than Frankie Sinatra which is the only song I despised from Wildflower. I actually think the album will be good,

Wildflower sucked. Everything since then has also sucked.

I like this cover and concept, but I expect it to also suck.

I did like Wildflower. Well, most of it... probably a 3/5 for me. There’s probably a better album somewhere in there if they edit themselves and focus some of their ideas better but I think the lack of focus is sort of the appeal with them.

Yeah it was OK, agree with 3/5. Never feel an urge to listen to it.
Just realizing the "hit" singles from both it and SILY are horrendous.

yeah not feeling the cover (and the concept is a bit too whimsical but not in a good way, and already used by richard d james). even the initial art for "we will always love you" would've been better.

still going to reserve judgement on the new album though, they do have a tendency to release singles not indicative of the album. i would most definitely not recommend judging SILY by SILY and frontier psychiatrist. same for wildflower, frankie sinatra and colours don't really represent it. because i'm me / if i was a folkstar would've been more obvious choices.

frankie is fine, a concept track that works, unlike noisy eater, which is too much, and completely breaks the flow.